| Mom of two boys at a day care/preschool. What is the difference from a female teacher assisting a male child with the toilet or diapering? I love my son's male teacher. It makes me sad how he and other male teachers, like my BIL, have to be careful regarding hugs and kisses, whereas female teachers it is seen as normal (i.e. he gives fist bumps or high fives whereas the female teachers give hugs and kisses, when my son hugged his legs, he said, "let's get on the same level" and got down on the ground to hug him a side hug). Err...I actually really like the positive male influence other than my husband/their dad, uncles, grandparents. I think it is great to see male teachers. |
| Our school has a male preschool teacher who is amazing. But he has no role in taking the kids to the bathroom. There is a female that does it and I believe it is done just so that the male teacher does not have to worry about parents who think this way. |
| Nope. |
Same here. Our DD loves all of her preschool teachers, one of whom is male. I assume the bathroom policy is to avoid these types of questions. I personally would not have a problem with it. |
| Yes I'd be comfortable with it if he was good with kids. I'm sure they have rules about diapers/toileting. |
What do you mean? |
Preschool teacher here - I think pp is referring to the fact that most preschools don’t allow male teachers to diaper or take kids to the bathroom. A female teacher has to do it |
| I favor one of the preschools I applied to because they have male teachers. Since we don’t live in 1950, I would like my child to know that men and women can do the same things. |
| Over the 5 years our twins were in preschool, they had 2 male teachers. Both were some of the best teachers for the preschoolers. The male teachers were much more actively engaged with the children during play time. They were active out on the playground interacting with the children much more, teaching them games, running with them, and keeping up with them. The kids were much more active with the male teachers and at the end of the day the kids were less likely to be bouncing off the walls with excess energy, which happened more with female teachers where tended to be more likely to supervise playtime rather than have an interactive play time. Both male teachers were very creative and gave good lessons and provided excellent male role models for the kids. It was nice for the kids to be able to see teachers of both genders in those schools. |
| My (male) friend, now in higher education, worked in a Montessori school when he was in grad school. If I'd encountered him or someone like him, I'd have no issues. |
I've never encountered this, and I'd like to see a school's explanation for doing so. What's it gonna say? "Since we don't trust our male teachers enough to not be pedophiles, only female teachers are allowed to change diapers or accompany children to the bathroom." Why hire male teachers if you're gonna impose a rule like that? |
I’m not reading 5 pages of comments but, wow! How lucky for your daughter to get a nurturing (I assume) male leader role model so young! What a great opportunity. |
| FYI-it is illegal to require only female teachers to diaper or accompany kids to the bathroom. If a male and female have the same job, they should have the same responsibilities. That being said, we always require the bathroom doors to be open so that no employee is in a position where they might be accused of bad behavior. |